Italian financial expansion to National Bank of Albania and SVEA (1925 1939) - Economicus

by, Lavdosh Ahmetaj

Abstract

Political and economic interest of Italy towards Albania, displayed since before World War, as an Austrian anti-function, was consolidated when the Conference of Ambassadors of Italy in 1921 acknowledged a special “mandate” on the new Balkan republic1 .Immediately after the First World War, after the failure of the agreement Venizello-Titoni, Italy was positioned for preserving the independent Albanian state in its political borders set on July 29, 1913 by the Conference of Ambassadors in London. This circumstance, combined with “the Italian protectorate” will bring significant benefits of a political order, since the point of view of control in Balkan –Adriatic areas constituted an obstacle to the French aspirations in the Balkans and broke the continuity of possession of Serbs and Greeks on the east coast of Adriatic and control of the strait of Otranto and it had a great economic importance i accepted as “value of transit” of the Albanian territory2 .For this reason, it had a strategic importance for Albania’s Adriatic balance and represent the main gate for economic expansion to the Middle East3 . However, economic relations between Italy and Albania were just started to have a greater importance in 1925, March, when were concluded oil concessions conventions in Italy that compromise the responsibility to create an issuing bank. Agreement on the Establishment of the National Bank of Albania (Banca Nazionale D’Albania) was signed on 03.15.1925 by the Albanian Foreign Minister, Myfit Bey Libohova, and Mario Alberti4 , representatives of the Italian financial group – which were part of the banks of this country – that, at the invitation of the League of Nations, had organized the operation5 .Arrangements were subsequently ratified by the Albanian Parliament, on 23 June and 5 July 1925, and declared the “Organic Law on National Bank of Albania” and the law on the new monetary order. Article 18 of the agreement, in addition, provided that the new bank had to ensure, through a specially created company (Svea), a fund of fifty million gold francs for the Albanian state. The loan, intended for the construction of public works, would be guaranteed by customs revenues and the main Albanian monopolies. The agreements followed two months later, the Proclamation of the Albanian republic headed by Ahmed Zog, who had requested the financial support of the regime to consolidate his power in the country. From a diplomatic point of entry in Albania, Italian capital was supported by the UK and US governments, concerned to win the acceptance of Italy in the Renanine security pact and, more generally, In order to thwart the increase of the French hegemony in Eastern Europe